Thursday, February 27, 2014

Today I have one of the new Smitten Polishes from their St. Patrick's Day collection called Shamrock Shake. This is my first Smitten but after this I am pretty sure I am going to need to go back for more. First of all this makes me want a shamrock shake just talking about it. I had one the other day and it so soooo good and got me even more excited for this to show up in the mail. Shamrock Shake is a minty green holo that applies perfectly in three thin coats. The formula is a great consistency not being too thick or thin. Like with all holographics they do dry quicker so you don't want to keep going over the same spot a bunch or it will drag. I didn't really have any issues with that. I was so excited that even though it was freezing today the sun came out so I was able to capture just how gorgeous this polish really is. I did use a topcoat of Seche Vite for the picture below.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

I purchased the Mariah Carey Pure 24K white gold and silver topcoat a few months ago when I found it at Ulta on clearance and it has seriously taken me this long to use it. I don't know why but something about real gold on my nails scared me like I would be wasting it or something. I wanted to add something over Rimmel's Barmy Blue and I honestly couldn't think of anything better than Pure. I am so glad I finally decided to use it because it is absolutely gorgeous! It isn't an over powering glitter topper but it is just the right amount of glitter. It has smaller flecks as well as some larger ones. I still feel like I am going to be sad when I wipe the REAL gold off with acetone and toss it in the trash like I am being wasteful or something but I gotta get over it because this polish is gorgeous and demands to be used again!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Today I have one of the polishes from the new Rimmel line the Rimmel London Salon Pro with Lycra. They discontinued the square bottles and brought back their older type formula that has Lycra in it and in a really cute round bottle with the crown on top. The only one I was really drawn to was a gorgeous blue called Barmy Blue. Formula is great and this was just a two coater. The brush is a little bit on the wide side but was still pretty easy to control. Now the thing that really impressed me is that you can totally get away with not wearing topcoat because it dries so glossy. My pictures show this polish all on it's own with no topcoat. I really hope they expand this line soon because I need more of this formula because it is awesome!

Monday, February 24, 2014

So I missed last Monday and all of last week unfortunately and I apologize for that. I had a loss in my family this week and really needed a week away from basically the world. So I have something for today that is super simple and I am going to keep it short and sweet. The posts this week may be a little more short and too the point too so I apologize in advance.

For my base I used A England Briar Rose. I thought the only thing really fitting of that name was to stamp roses so I used Cici & Sisi plate 3 and MASH black stamping polish.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

I don't know how this got stuck in my head but on Valentines day all I could think about was that I wanted dinosaur Vday nails. I think maybe it reminded me a little of the cheesy little valentines cards that you send when you are little. So I thought since the idea never went away this is what happened and honestly I think these are my favorite Valentines Day nails ever.

I started with two coats of Zoya Julie on all nails. For my stamping colors I used Cult Nails Morning Glory which is a lot more pink toned by turned very purple-y over Julie. For my black I just used a MASH stamping polish. The main plate I used for all my dinosaurs and the randomly cute little dragonfly is Vivid Lacquer plate VL014. The other plates I used are Bundle Monster BM H16, BM 303, and Shany 214. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite. I ended up adding a matte top coat but I actually think I prefer this one glossy but will show both ways here. Hope everyone is enjoying all the sweet candy sales in stores post Vday! I love the day after a candy holiday a little too much but I am just not sorry at all. Chocolate is freaking amazing.

Friday, February 14, 2014

I hope everyone had a good Valentines day whether you celebrated the holiday or not. I didn't celebrate it in the traditional way but I did have a great time watching Resident Evil and painting my nails. The nails I have today were not painted tonight but I will have the ones I did tonight as my last vday mani actually on the 15th. I didn't expect to do another but it just kinda came out that way.

Anyways, on to todays mani. I started off with two coats of Cult Nails Bad DN and topped it with a layer of seche vite. Next using Cici&Sisi plate 03 and Cult Nails Kiss a red wax finish polish, I stamped a rose design on all the nails. My goal here was a tone on tone color to create a background that would be interesting but not too overpowering because I wanted to use black to create the main focus of each nail. Starting with the thumb I used Pueen 43 and on index to pinky I used:BM H16 & H17, Winstonia 102, BM H17, and BM H16. The black I used on all the nails was Mash Black stamping polish. I top coated everything with a layer of Seche Vite followed by Butter London matte top coat.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

This weeks episode of Pretty Little Liars is a black and white episode so I decided to go for black and white too but with a little red thrown in. I started off with two coats of Milani White On The Spot as a base. After letting that dry I stamped a flourish design on all my nails except my middle finger using MASH black stamping polish and Bundle Monster plate 314. I chose to do my middle finger as my accent finger and using Pueen 70 stamped a girls face. I used the same black and in the lips I used Cult Nails Kiss. The girls face even kinda reminds me of Hannah or Ali. I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Monday, February 10, 2014

I don't know if I am super ready for Spring after all this snow and subzero temperatures or if I am just in love with this toxic green neon right now but I just don't want to take Zoya Mitzi off. For this weeks mani I decided to leave it on and play around some more with my new Pueen plates. I used Pueen plate 63 from the new buffet set along with Cult Nails Fetish to stamp. I chose to use a matte polish to stamp with so I could keep a matte finish without having to use any kind of top coat at all. I really love the contrast between the neon green and black. I also love that with a single plate I created so many different designs on my nails. I can't wait to play around more with this set!

Sunday, February 9, 2014

I am just going to cut straight to the chase and not sugar coat this one bit. 1. I absolutely LOVE the color of Mitzi. 2. Mitzi's formula is terrible!!! Mitzi is a toxic green apple colored mattevelvet polish. I adore just how toxic it looks in that frosted bottle like a tiny bottle of poison. Even the color on the nails I am in love with. Application was a complete nightmare though. Mattes are notorious for kinda crap formulas but this was the worst one I have worked with in a while. The first coat was so thin and streaky. The second coat was again super streaky and I had a big problem with dragging and balding. I had to do three coats on all nails except one where on the second coat it completely took all the polish off the top part of my nail. My most helpful tips to work with this are to try to stick to the three stroke method and resist the urge to go over anything twice. I think that is where most of my problems came from. In my pictures you can still see some streaks but overall I'm still happy with this. I will say that it is worth the hassle for the color.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Just going to do a short little NOTD post for today. The second part of my nail mail this week was the new set of Pueen plates. I am so freaking excited for them! So right after I painted my nails with my new Cult I just had to test out the new plates too. This is something I think would be great for Valentines Day. I started off with two coats of Cult Nails Kiss and after it dried I stamped with Cult Nails Tempest using Pueen plate 73. I am super impressed with this set after using just one plate. I love how all the nails except the accent nail are similar but not identical. I think that is my main complaint on most stamping plates is sometimes I don't want them all to look identical. With the new plates it's possible to get lots of different variation because the image is so big you can choose to go at the image from any angle. I seriously can't wait to play around with this set some more this weekend.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

I am so excited today!! I've been down sick the past couple of days but I got some serious nail mail to cheer me right up. Today I received the Cult Nails Passionate Dreams collection and you better believe I was stalking the door for the mailman all day. I purchased this on the last day of January as my final justifiable birthday present to myself. I think I might have broke some records for just how fast I had that box open and those burritos ripped apart to get to the amazing polish underneath.

While I was looking forward to every single polish in the collection, Kiss was my most anticipated polish by far. Cult Nails has the absolute best formula when it comes to their wax finish polishes. Kiss also reminds me of a polish that I have been lemming for a while, Illamasqua Aorta, which is a red rubber finish polish. Kiss definitely squashed that lemming!

Kiss is a almost blood red wax finish polish. It's close to a real red but with a little bit of darkness to it as well. I was really impressed with the formula on this because it was almost a one coater. I think if I would have done a little bit of a thicker coat it could have been. It goes on super shiny and glossy bu within a few minutes dries to the wax finish. I didn't have any issues with dragging or flooding when applying the second coat. I didn't use any kind of top coat for this because that would just defeat the purpose of the amazing finish on Kiss.

Stay tuned because I will be reviewing more of the collection as the week goes on. I will also be doing some stamping with my new stamping set that came this week from Pueen. The Passionate Dreams collection is now available for sale individually at http://www.cultnails.com/ for $12 a bottle.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Today I have for you a mani based on Beyonce's dress from the 2014 Grammy Awards. I am not the biggest Beyonce fan in the world but her dress at the awards was just stunning.

Image credit to CelebBuzz.com

To start off I used Cult Nails Baker which is a great caramel colored nude with a little bit of shimmer to it. I used three coats because the formula is a little sheer but it builds up really nicely and is so worth it. Next I did some stamping using Cult Nails Tempest and plate Pueen 44 and 22 and Gals GA30. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Today I have Jule's Glam Roc which is part of the February Julep Maven box subscription box. I had a really hard time narrowing down what colors I wanted this month so I ended up picking a box and then adding on two polishes. This month I went with the Bombshell box and added on the two Stardust Finish polishes: Cameron and Glam Roc. Stardust Finish is Julep's version of texture polish similar to Zoya Pixies and OPI Liquid Sands.

Glam Roc is a royal purple texture with tons of glitter and shine. It's almost a little Mardi Gras-ish with it's green, gold and pink micro glitter. The formula on this was super thick but still very easy to work with. That thickness made it almost a one coater! I did need two coats though to get it full opaque. If you have Zoya Chita I would say the formula is most like that one where it is just super thick but so perfect. I wish it was sunny here so I could properly show just how much shimmer this has in the light. I am going to attach a short video clip showing just how much sparkle this gives out. I am really impressed with my first Julep texture and hope the other one is just as great as this.

Julep is a monthly polish subscription that you can get for $19.99 a month. Most boxes have two polishes and some kind of product in makeup or beauty. They also have all polishes boxes and all product boxes. You can get your first month for free and just pay shipping with the code FREEBOX. If you are interested in finding out more about Julep or signing up I will post my referral link below.